Commentary
Standards, Accountability & Testing
Cheers and Jeers for January 26, 2015
The good and the bad in recent Ohio education news.
Commentary
Standards
Common Core in Ohio: don’t look back
There is no room for Sisyphus in the fight to improve Ohio schools.
Commentary
Standards
International Benchmarking: State and National Education Performance Standards
The "Massachusetts Miracle" was more than just higher standards implemented well.
Commentary
Standards, Accountability & Testing
A portrait of Ohio at the cusp of a new era
The Buckeye State is at the cusp of an era of new emphasis in K-12 education - the college-and-career-ready era. We look at Ohio's report cards in this new light.
Commentary
Standards, Accountability & Testing
Effort to repeal Common Core leaves Ohio school board member “baffled”
Worthington school board member’s testimony in support of Common Core
Commentary
Standards
The problems with House Bill 597
Part Two of our analysis of the problems with the latest legislative assault on Common Core in Ohio.
Commentary
Standards
Pulling an Indiana: How House Bill 597 mimics the Common Core
Think we're getting something new from HB597? Think again.
Commentary
Standards
Ten things Ohio Common Core opponents don’t want you to know
As another legislative assault on the Common Core in Ohio begins, here's a few things you might want to know.
Commentary
Charter Schools, Standards, Accountability & Testing
For higher performance, use informal channels of teacher feedback
Ohio’s new teacher-evaluation system requires evaluators to conduct two, formal thirty-minute classroom observations. Yet these legally prescribed observations seem ripe for compliance and rote box-checking; in fact, they may not be quite the impetus for school-wide improvement that policymakers had hoped for.
Commentary
Standards, Accountability & Testing
Ohio’s high-flying public schools, in reading
We look for - and find - the public schools ranked in the top 10 percent on Ohio’s value-added measure for reading in each of the past four years.
Commentary
Accountability & Testing, Standards, Curriculum & Instruction
Spending More of the School Day in Math Class: Evidence From a Regression Discontinuity in Middle School
We take a look at the evidence for and against "double dosing" in middle school math.
Commentary
Accountability & Testing, Standards
Ohio's New Learning Standards: Helping, not hampering
This piece was originally published the United States Chamber of Commerce’s website on Wednesday, July 23, 2014. Six days later, two legislators proposed a new legislative assault on Ohio’s New Learning Standards, which include the Common Core State Standards in math and English language arts.
Commentary
Accountability & Testing, Standards
Is alternative accountability real accountability?
Do Ohio's multiple accountability "systems" erode the very foundation of accountability?
Commentary
Accountability & Testing, Standards
Standardized Tests: Correlation to Future Successes? (Part I of II)
First of a two-part analysis looking at early indicators to future success.
Report
Accountability & Testing, School Finance, Private School Choice
Pluck and Tenacity: How five private schools in Ohio have adapted to vouchers
Roughly 30,000 kids in Ohio take advantage of a publicly funded voucher (or “scholarship”).
Report
Evidence-Based Learning, School Finance, Governance
Limitless: Education, The Reynoldsburg Way
The Reynoldsburg City School District, just east of Columbus, is far down the “portfolio management” path – further than probably any suburban school district of its size. This feature article discusses portfolio management and takes readers behind the scenes in Reynoldsburg.
Report
School Finance, Governance
Steps in the Right Direction
Dr. Paul Hill evaluates Governor John Kasich's education budget proposal.
Report
Accountability & Testing, Charter Schools, Standards
2011-12 Ohio Report Card Analysis
Our annual analysis of school performance in our home state's major urban areas, plus a projection of proficiency rates when the PARCC exams arrive in 2014-15.
Report
Standards, Teachers & School Leaders
Future Shock: Early Common Core implementation lessons from Ohio
With the 2014-15 Common-Core transition looming, we wondered: How are Ohio’s educators preparing themselves for this big change? Who is doing this work and what can other schools and districts learn from the early adopters? What are lessons, hopes, and fears facing those on the frontlines who have to lead Ohio’s embrace of significantly more rigorous academic standards?
Report
School Finance, Governance
After the Budget, What Next? Ohio's Education Policy Priorities
To what extent have Ohio's leaders met the challenges and opportunities before them in K-12 education? What needs to happen next?
Report
School Finance, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
Yearning to Break Free
Statewide survey of Ohio school district superintendents (and other education leaders) on the most critical issues facing K-12 education in the Buckeye State, including budgets, school effectiveness, and troublesome laws.
Report
Accountability & Testing, School Finance, Governance
Education Imperatives for Ohio: K-12 Policy Priorities for the New Biennium
In this policy brief, Fordham gives its advice to Governor-elect Kasich and the incoming leaders of the Ohio House and Senate as it relates to the future of K-12 education policy in the Buckeye State.
Report
School Finance
Ohio at the Crossroads: School funding—more of the same or changing the model?
Ohio Governor Ted Strickland's education plan calls for modernizing Ohio's K-12 education system, including the state's school-funding system, but the plan's so-called "evidence-based" approach would actually scuttle any modernizing efforts, argues this study issued by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute.
Report
School Finance, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
Accelerating Student Learning in Ohio
As Gov. Ted Strickland concludes his 12-city "Conversation on Education" tour to gather ideas for reforming public education in Ohio, the Thomas B. Fordham Institute has put forth a report of five recommendations designed to keep improvements in the Buckeye State's public schools on track toward three critical goals: 1) maximizing the talents of every child; 2) producing graduates as good as any in the world; and 3) closing the persistent academic gaps that continue between rich and poor, and black and white and brown.
Report
Accountability & Testing, Charter Schools, Standards
2006-07 Ohio Report Cards
Despite a decade of significant school reform efforts in Ohio, students in the state's largest cities still struggle mightily to meet basic academic standards and are nowhere close to achieving the goals set by the federal No Child Left Behind law, according to an analysis of the latest Ohio school report-card data.
Report
School Finance, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
Golden Peaks and Perilous Cliffs
Despite its long history and prodigious size, all is not well with Ohio's teacher pension system. In this Fordham Institute report, nationally renowned economists Robert Costrell and Mike Podgursky illuminate some of the serious challenges facing STRS.
Report
Charter Schools, Governance, Private School Choice, Standards
Ohioans' Views on Education 2007
This survey covers such topics as school quality and funding, academic standards, school reforms, proposals to improve how the public schools are run, teacher quality, charter schools and school vouchers. It follows up a survey conducted in 2005 and many of the questions are repeated, allowing us to gauge whether attitudes have shifted over time.
Report
Accountability & Testing, School Finance, Charter Schools
Turning the Corner to Quality
At the request of Ohio's top government and education leaders, the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, National Association of Charter School Authorizers, and National Alliance for Public Charter Schools have issued a report seeking to strengthen the state's charter school program. Among its 17 recommendations are calls for closing low-performing charter schools while also helping more high-performance schools to open and succeed in Ohio.
Report
School Finance, Charter Schools
School Finance in Dayton: A Comparison of the Revenues of the School District and Community Schools
This report, prepared for the Thomas B. Fordham Institute by Public Impact, compares charter school funding and district school funding. It finds that charter schools are under-funded compared to their district counterparts, even after accounting for differences in students and grade levels. These findings should be taken seriously by those who argue that charter schools drain funds from district schools.
